Tough as Nails
by dove1593
Summary: Lin has been an official Republic City police officer for two weeks, and things are not quite as she had expected. She comes home after one especially rough day to find a certain special, if not also a tad pesky, airbender waiting for her.


Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, I suppose? I'm just glad I wrote a fic for Valentine's Day and published it in February...not March, or June like last year.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. (to be completely honest, I don't think it's possible to own Lin Bei Fong.)

Reviews are greatly appreciated :)

* * *

Tenzin leaned back in the wooden chair as he listened to Lin fumble with her keys outside the door to her apartment. The metal clinking ceased, and the rustle of the key turning in the door began.

She had no idea who waited on the other side of the door for her. Lin had been on the police force officially for two weeks now, and Tenzin had decided to surprise her after a long day on the job with a nice dinner and quiet night to themselves, even though it was closer to morning by now.

The door slid open, and Lin appeared; the light from the city streets outside flooded the room. She gasped when she saw the tall man sitting in the middle of her small apartment, and she stopped herself from throwing one of her cables at him when she realized he was just Tenzin.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped, regaining her breath. She tossed her keys into a little bowl sitting on a skinny table pressed against the wall by the door. The door latched behind her.

"Surprise?" Tenzin answered, concern leaking into his voice. He had been dreaming all day of the smile on her face when she found him here. "I wanted to make you dinner," he explained, his concern dipping into hurt.

Lin struggled with the pair of spark rocks from the table to light the candle they'd sat next to. After a few failed attempts to catch a spark she threw them down and leaned against the door, the metal cable contraption strapped to her back thumping against the wood.

"Let me help," Tenzin offered gently, rising from the chair and feeling through the dark room to the table. He grabbed onto the spark rocks, and within seconds, the candle was lit. The glow of the flame grew quickly to cross over Lin's face. Her raven hair was falling out of its usual perfectly stiff style. A few strands hung in her eyes that were bloodshot, and dark circles rested underneath. Dust tinted her fair skin to hide the thin, faded scars along her right cheek. A purple bruise was forming on her left cheekbone, and dried blood was caked under her nose. "Lin, what happened?" Tenzin asked, dropping the spark rocks to set his hand on her arm.

"Nothing," she breathed. "I just got punched. It's nothing. I'm fine."

Tenzin moved his hand from her arm to lightly press his fingertips on her bruised cheek. She winced under his touch. "Are you sure you're alright?" He took his hand away and wrapped his fingers around hers. "You're not hurt anywhere else, are you?"

She squeezed his hands. "I don't know," she admitted with a huff of breath. "I just want to take this thing off and go to bed."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Tenzin, don't do this right now," Lin argued weakly, dropping his hands and pushing away from the door. "I wasn't even planning on you being here."

"I wanted to surprise you," Tenzin explained as she slowly paced by him and towards the hall. "You've been so exhausted lately; I wanted you to come home one night and not have to do anything for yourself, just to relax."

Lin stopped. "And thank you for that, Tenzin, really, I mean it." She paused to take a deep breath. "It's just that tonight isn't a good night."

"Why's that?"

"I told you, I got punched a couple times." She turned back around now, and her eyes found Tenzin's in the dim light. "I sat in the station clinic for two hours waiting for the bleeding to stop. Mom considered sending someone for your mother. She threatened to walk me home, too, when she asked how I was and I told her I felt dizzy." As the words came out of her mouth, Lin brought a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes.

Tenzin sighed. He approached her and took hold of the hand at her side. "Are you still a little dizzy?" he asked.

"It never really went away," she answered as Tenzin tugged at her wrist, coaxing her to sit in the little wooden chair.

Tenzin was tempted to ask her what exactly had happened, but he was afraid to upset her again. "Maybe I should stay for a while and make sure you're alright," he offered gently.

Lin looked up from the chair and pushed the hair out of her eyes. "Did I say I wanted you to leave or something?"

"No," he squeaked. "I just got the impression you didn't really want me here right now."

She still held his hand, and her grip tightened on it. "Please stay. If that's alright."

A smile twitched at his lips. "Of course," he said. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Lin held her lips in a straight line. "I really just want to take this armor off," she breathed, letting go of Tenzin's hand. She pushed herself up to stand and rested her forehead against Tenzin's chin for a short moment. "I could use a nice cup of tea, though, if you think you need to do something for me."

He pressed his lips on her dusty forehead. "You don't need help with your armor? Isn't it a little heavy for you to be lifting if you're dizzy?"

A tiny laugh escaped her mouth as she stepped away from him. "It's metal," she said. "I'll bend it like I always do."

"Are you sure?"

"Tenzin, stop it," she complained.

"Lin, listen to me for a moment." Tenzin placed his hands on her shoulders, and she winced in pain again. "Let me help you, just tonight. It's just you and me here. I'm not going to tell anyone."

"I'm fine," she mumbled. "My head will clear up in a little while."

"I know." He moved his hand to curve around her cheek again, but stopped when he remembered the purple bruise and replaced the hand to her shoulder. "I'm not saying you need help; I'm saying don't you want it? Doesn't it sound nice after today?"

"If I say yes, will you at least let me take my own armor off?"

The smile returned to his lips. "Yes. But that's it. I'm going to run a hot bath for you, and we'll clean your face up."

Her lips turned downward. "What's wrong with my face?"

"Nothing," Tenzin scrambled to say. "It's just the dust from the street; I can't see your pretty eyes as well."

"I know what I look like right now," she teased. "And my eyes are pretty scary."

"No, they're just lovely," Tenzin insisted before leaning down to kiss her.

Lin pressed back for a moment, but then she snapped her head away. "Damn it!" she growled, her hand flying up to cover her nose. "Tenzin, I'm sorry," she said, her voice muffled.

In the dim light, the red blood streaming down her hand looked a dark brown. Tenzin simply led her down the hall to the tiny bathroom, sat her down, and lit the oil lamps in the room. In the light, he found a towel and handed it to her. Tears sat in the corners of her eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, kneeling down on the floor.

"I just want to go to bed," she mumbled, taking the towel off of her face for a second to reveal the bloody streaks before replacing it. "Forget today ever happened."

"Am I allowed to ask what happened?" He set a hand on her knee and ran his thumb across the metal plate.

She nodded. "We had a search warrant for this gang boss's shop, and Mom asked me to go and take a few guys, and this shopkeeper let us in. He said the guy we were looking for was out. I thought we would just look around for a few minutes and leave because we weren't going to find anything without the right guy there, and then the shopkeeper's trying to break this big vase over my head, but one of the other officers caught him first. Huge guys started just appearing from behind the counter and everywhere, really. One of them was this nonbender guy, and he wasn't afraid of anything. He went to throw a punch at one of my officers, and I wrapped his wrist with my cables, and he yanked me right down. Pulled me over to him before I could get up, and that's when he got me square in the face."

Tenzin's thumb ran over a rough scuff in the knee plate. "Is everyone else alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," she breathed. "We got out of there real fast after that. No arrests. Mom was so angry."

Tenzin nodded like he understood. "How's the bleeding? Is it slowing down?"

Lin removed the towel for a moment. "Almost done, I think."

"Then I'll get your bath going," he said with a little smile.

"Really, you don't have to," she said.

"I want to," he answered as he stood. "You've more than earned it today."

While the tub filled with warm water, Tenzin took a clean corner of the towel and dipped it under the running faucet. He gently ran the cloth over Lin's face, dabbing at the drying blood, and pausing when she flinched from having tender spots touched. As he worked at removing the dirt, he came to realize that the dark circles under her eyes couldn't just be from lack of sleep. They were a bold purple that matched the bruise on her cheek, and they were really one solid shape connected at the bridge of her nose.

"Is it broken?" he asked, hesitantly dabbing at her nose.

She flinched and grabbed his wrist. "Probably," she answered. "Don't make it bleed again, please."

Tenzin pulled the towel away from her face, and she let go of his wrist. "Alright, then I suppose that's good enough for now." He stood and kissed her forehead before leaving her in peace to take her bath.

Lin signed once the door latched behind Tenzin. Being taken care of was so exhausting when she was used to just doing it herself. She stood to remove the metal plates from her body, but she refrained from bending when her mind became clouded from the simple movement. Maybe she should call Tenzin back to help; only that would worry him more. But if she was leary to bend, and Tenzin was concerned about her lifting...

Lin reached across her chest to pop the tiny latches on her shoulder. Minimal bending was required to pull the two plates apart and gently lower them to the ground. On nights like this, she tended to let them drop and clamor for a few moments, but she didn't dare alert Tenzin. Her shoes and shin guards slid off fairly easily. She worked the thick cotton uniform off her body, stopping for a moment to stare in the mirror at the red welts and black and blue bruises from being jostled around inside her armor.

That would stop eventually, she reminded herself, running her fingers over a particularly sensitive bruise at her waist from when the retraction device on her cables was busted by a Triple Threat Triad member. Her body would either callous or grow into the hollow shape, most likely a cross between the two. Until then, she wished her mother would stop sending her on missions to get beat up.

When the incident happened a few days ago, she complained to her mother about there even being a retraction device in the first place. It just made the whole contraption heavier, and most of the officers used their bending to pull back the cables. Besides, when hers broke, it jammed the whole thing, and she couldn't pull them back and didn't have time to fix it. Her mother just went on a boring spiel about how there has to be a manual retraction device because of the increasing popularity of chi blocking among non-benders.

Now, Lin just shut the faucet off on the tub and slowly eased herself into the water. She would work on improving the design herself in her spare time. The warm water lappedmaround her body and relaxing her aching muscles and sore bruises; Tenzin had been right about one thing. She removed the pins from her hair and dropped them to the floor before shaking a little bit of dirt and dust out from her shoulder-length locks. Lin was a little concerned about submerging her face, so she carefully leaned back to dip her hair in the water but held onto the sides of the tub to keep her face dry. Then, she let go with one hand to reach back and work the tougher dirt from her hair.

After rinsing her hair, Lin leaned her shoulders against the back of the tub and stared at the water. She had to wash the rest of the blood off her face. Tenzin would only volunteer to do it himself if she reappeared from the bathroom with the same bloody face. Ever so lightly, she touched her wet hand to her nose. The throbbing had gone down significantly on her walk home, but the touch brought some of it back. She took her hand away and examined her fingers. Some mud, a little bit of water-diluted blood. No more throbbing, she decided, and certainly no more bleeding.

Lin considered splashing a bit of water on her face, but let go of the idea when the possibility of getting warm water up her nose starting the bleeding again popped into her head. The towel Tenzin had given her sat on the corner of the sink, but it was dirty and bloody enough. The others were in a little basket within her reach, and she grabbed one, soaking it in the water before covering her nose with it. The pain numbed a tiny bit, and she waited a few moments for the warmth to loosen the blood and dirt before removing the small towel. She began to carefully dab at her nose, checking the towel to make sure the debris came off. She anticipated a third rush of blood to her face, but none came, and before long, she felt just a little more back to normal.

She lifted herself from the tub and unstopped the drain. Lin pulled a larger towel from a hook in the wall and dried herself off before wrapping the towel around her for the trip across the hall to her room. The ugly purple smear of bruising across her face caught her attention in the mirror. Upon a closer look, she saw that only the thick middles were purple, and the edges were a combination of dark blue and black. She stepped back from the mirror, afraid that looking much longer would reveal the mark had it's own pulse. How would she have hidden this from Tenzin in the first place? Maybe it was better he was here now to see it in all it's aching nastiness, so he wouldn't have a panic attack later when it would hopefully look much less swollen and discolored.

Slowly, she turned the doorknob and pulled the door open just a crack. Tenzin had the lamps going and light filled the front room and the hallway. She could hear the clamor of dishes and assumed Tenzin had made himself busy in the kitchen, so she hopped across the hallway to her bedroom.

Her room was dark, of course, but she didn't bother to mess with the lamps. The less she saw of her crushed face, the better. She picked through the mess of clothes to find a nightgown without holes or stains. Her search ended at the chest of drawers where she found one silk nightgown she'd forgotten existed. A gift from...she had no idea. She dropped the towel and slid the cold silk over her body, careful to avoid her nose. The material didn't feel right, and she felt rather stupid for wearing her one nice piece of sleepwear while her nose could gush blood at any moment.

But Tenzin wasn't ready for Lin's collection of threadbare pajamas that were all sort of a gray color from having been washed so many times. He had been shocked enough for one night, since it seemed completely backwards to him that police work was dangerous. Maybe another night, when she wasn't dizzy and bleeding and covered in bruises.

Lin quickly raked a brush through her wet hair before returning to the front of her apartment. Tenzin was pouring tea in the little one-wall kitchen. He set the tea kettle down and wrapped his hands around the tray. He turned around, and smiled when saw Lin leaning against the wall.

"Do you feel a little better now?" he asked.

She nodded. "I'm still exhausted though."

"Alright, have some tea, and I'll leave you alone." Tenzin carried the tray to the middle of the floor and got down on the ground. Lin didn't have a table; she rarely ate at home. She sat next to Tenzin and worked both of her arms around one of his, leaning her unbruised cheek on his shoulder.

"You don't have to leave," she said. No way was he leaving after she'd gone through all the trouble of letting him take care of her.

"Is something wrong, still?"

"No," she breathed. "I just thought that if you were going to take care of me, you would hold onto me for a while."

His smile widened as he picked up two small tin cups steaming with tea. "What got into you?"

"Nothing; I thought that was part of the deal." Lin sat up to take her cup and gently blew on the white, curly wisps of vapor.

"I let you take your armor off in exchange for a bath, tea, and a little snuggling?" Tenzin took a sip from his cup. "I don't see how that's exactly fair."

But it was fair. Lin hadn't wanted a bath. She didn't plan on Tenzin being there to clean her up in the first place. If it were up to her, she'd have been asleep for an hour by now. She had jumped through her own hoops to get this cup of tea, and damn it, she'd get to lay in his arms if it meant breaking his nose, too.

Tenzin wrapped his arm around her waist. "But I would never turn down a chance to hold on to you," he said. "Do you still feel dizzy at all?"

Lin took a drink from the cup in her hand. No sugar, no honey, no milk, and hot. Not too hot, but hot. Tenzin had improved since they had first started dating. "No," she answered. "I told you it'd clear up after a while."

"I'm glad."

They finished their tea in silence, and when Lin had swallowed the last drop in her cup, she returned it to the tray and adjusted her position to lay her head in Tenzin's lap. Her eyes drifted shut; she could hardly feel the throbbing in her face anymore. Tenzin ran his hand over her damp hair a few times, rested that hand on her shoulder, and then moved it to the curve of her waist. She was so pretty, he thought, bruises and all. She was so funny, too, the way she soaked up his help like a sponge, slowly but holding onto the bulk of it. with her curled in his lap, breathing lightly, her hand rested on his knee, he wanted to lean down and kiss her cheek, but the bruised side was up, and he didn't dare move and disturb her, either.

Tenzin set his empty cup next to hers on the tray. He gently prodded her waist. "Lin," he whispered.

"Yeah?" she whispered back.

"Do you want me to take you bed?" he asked.

She mulled this over a moment; Tenzin was afraid she'd fallen asleep. "Not unless you want to stay with me," she answered.

Tenzin began stroking her hair again. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

He didn't argue. If he told her no and left now, she would be upset. Maybe she would be upset in the morning, too, but it was a chance he was willing to take. He picked up the tray and placed it on the wooden chair to keep it from any creatures in the floor. Then, he wrapped his arms around her and slowly, gently, lifted her into his hold and stood to carry her to bed.

"I can walk," she protested weakly, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.

"It's alright," he said. "I want to."

Her lips twitched up just a little.

Tenzin carried her into her room, and carefully stepping around the clothes and tools on the floor, he laid her down on her unmade bed. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then her unbruised cheek. "Good night," he murmured. He turned to leave when she caught his hand.

"You're staying, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, I was just going to sleep out there," Tenzin explained.

"You don't have to sleep on the floor," she said. "Sleep in here, with me."

Tenzin squeezed her hand while he thought this over. Surely she was still in some kind of daze from her injuries. Surely this would pass, and she would wake up very unhappy. Lin was very much a closed book, and attempts to pry it open ended poorly for those involved. Depending on how much she would remember in the morning, she might be a mess of scrambled thoughts and memories.

"Are you sure about that?" he said, his eyes falling on an open dresser drawer with clothes flowing from it.

"Yes," she insisted. "It's just us here; who will ever know?"

His eyes snapped back to her pale and purple face. His own words used against him. Her mind couldn't be that dazed anymore. "Alright, I'll stay with you. Just let me turn off the lamps."

Lin let go of his hand, and he slipped back into the hallway. Once he'd let her lay down, this whole being taken care of wasn't that bad. His fingers in her hair, his hand on her waist. She felt normal, aside the slight throbbing in her face and the fact that he'd managed to find that sensitive bruise on her waist to set his hand on. But what was normal, anyway? Maybe she had just felt loved, or taken care of, or just not alone.

She could hardly hold her eyes open anymore, but she forced herself to stay awake until Tenzin came back a moment or two later. He climbed into bed next to her, allowing her to wrap her arms around his neck and lay her head on his chest. He placed a hand on her waist, and reached across himself to set the other on her shoulder. He rested his lips in her hair a moment, wishing her sweet dreams.

"Thank you, for everything tonight," she murmured.

"It's only because I love you, and I don't like seeing you in pain."

"I love you, too," she breathed. "You're just so comfortable."

Tenzin smiled and suppressed a tiny laugh. She drifted to sleep in no time, her breathing becoming even and her muscles twitching slightly in her dreams.


End file.
